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Game Side Story Interview (August 25, 2019)
During Gamescom 2019, an interview was held with Co-Creative Director Michel Koch and Lead Writer Jean-Luc Cano about the intentions behind Life is Strange 2 and the game's themes, conducted by the French site Game Side Story. It was published on their channels on August 25, 2019. Video INTERVIEW LIFE IS STRANGE 2 - Gamescom 2019 Description "We had the pleasure of meeting Michel Koch (on the right) and Jean-Luc Cano (on the left) at Gamescom 2019 and talked about Life is Strange 2 and its forth episode that just released. Enjoy watching!"Taken from the YouTube video description and translated by Meyerliane. Transcript The following English transcript was kindly provided by Game Side Story: Do you realize the impact Life is Strange has on players? Michel Koch: Yes, I think so. Maybe we don't realize it enough, but we still have a lot of players who have written to us to give us testimonies about what the game has brought them. Many messages on the first Life is Strange from young teenagers, young adults who explained how the game had helped them to overcome their anxiety, their relational problems, to assert themselves in their social life to gain self-confidence. With Kate's story, we received very touching messages from people who explained how close they were to depression and making mistakes themselves and how the game could help them talk about it and not pass the fatal moment. And with Life is Strange 2, we have a lot of messages from players who recognize themselves in the exclusion that Sean and Daniel suffer, the treatment, the problems caused by racism, the problems of minorities who recognize themselves in the characters. They weren't used to having games that actually talked about them. As a result, we realize this a little bit through what we are being written. Jean-Luc Cano: Yes, that's right, you realize it when you receive e-mails, when you have fan meet-and-greet nights. "That's it, it changed my life." You realize when you meet people that it's incredible. It's a pretty euphoric feeling. We wanted to make a good game and talk about subjects that mattered to us. If we were able to touch people and bring them a little bit of happiness, or even help them in their lives, it's incredible. Michel Koch: Above all, we think that we are working for something important. We're not going to say that video games as a whole are not important, but we have the impression that we're saying, here we are, even if it's only a few people we've helped, touching beyond just entertaining them, it's nice. We are still in a world where, I find, a lot of things lack meaning and if we can make sense and help people feel better, at least you think your work is not useless. But doesn't that force you to put some pressure on yourself to meet the specific expectations of the players? Jean-Luc: Wel, it's true that somewhere it's an extra burden, but it's not something we force ourselves to work with because if you restrict your creation by telling yourself that we absolutely have to please... We listen to the fans' messages, we take their opinions into account and the episodic format allows us to adjust certain things. Now, on the whole set of topics covered, we don't start a game by thinking "we're talking about this, we're talking about this". Our goal is first to create a good story and then, depending on the adventures of the story and the characters we meet, we use that to tell things, but it is the story that takes precedence. For example, at the beginning of LIS2, the LGBT+ community, which was very fond of LIS, asked us if there would be a gay character in LIS2 because we didn't get the feeling of 1. And we knew that Finn was going to happen, that other things were going to happen, we didn't do that to please even if it's very important for us to respect and talk about these minorities, but we focus first on the good story we need to tell. The history of LIS 2 is more complex. Was this new game more difficult to grasp? Michel Koch: LIS was much easier to understand. Jean-Luc started writing about the familiar terrain of high school, archetypes, characters seen and seen ten times in series and films. We worked on these characters to tell something but the anchor point is very well known and people can immediately identify with Max, with Victoria "ok I had someone in my school like that". On LIS 2 the anchor point is more complicated because we are talking about minorities not necessarily Gamers. The Drifters of episode 3 are not people who will play our game. After that, for us it was the whole point of LIS 2, to talk about the people who were left behind, the people we don't often talk about, to give the player a new perspective on people they wouldn't even have looked at in the street, in life, etc. There is no real anchor even if Shawn is a classic teenage teenager he is less universal than Max to make history. We ask the player to make a little effort to project himself into a life that is not theirs. To then discover it, what can be complicated and what makes it so that we still have a lot of players who haven't taken the step, who say to themselves, "What are you telling me about this, I don't know what it is. Well, we'll see later. In LiS 2 power has less space and is not playable. Why? Jean-Luc Cano: When we started creating LIS 2 we wanted to challenge each other and change the setting. Instead of leaving for Arcadia Bay, we offer a Road Movie. Instead of leaving over 5 days for 5 episodes, we wanted to spread it over several months and in particular, the main theme of LIS, the transition to adulthood, we wanted to tell another story in 2 and talk about education. We thought it would be very interesting not to have power ourselves, but to entrust it to someone else whose character and use of power would depend on the choice we made as a player. Daniel becomes basically the consequence of all the choices Shawn and the player will make. Education is not only about giving lessons and explaining things. It's more like what example you show by stealing something in front of Daniel, responding badly to others, choosing a more violent path, all this will shape Daniel's personality and the way he uses power. This is the theme of education that was dear to our hearts for LIS 2 and that's why we didn't decide to give power to the player. Michel Koch: And even from a broader point of view, the fact that Shawn is making this initiatory journey without having the power to do so makes him stronger in a human way. He manages to face his difficulties. And well, you will discover that in episodes 4 and 5 but... In this long journey he advances, he is still standing he continues while he has no power, he is like all the world he is powerless. And it's also to say that you don't need power to be a hero, to move forward. This second game offers real ellipses; Between the release of the episodes, the characters evolve. Why this idea? Jean-Luc Cano: I think it came from the beginning, from the conception of LiS2 with Raoul Barbet, the other Creative Director with Michel and I, we really wanted to start on a Road Trip structure such as we have in the movies or there are many ellipses. And in these ellipses, things change and we wanted the player to be able to understand what happened at the beginning of each episode by reading Shawn's diary. To give some indication of how they got there, what happened. It's a new narrative that we wanted to test and we wanted to try it to tell things in a new way. Michel Koch: After that it's a way of writing but it's also choosing the important moments of their journey and the ellipses if you read them, you see that they are moments of floating wandering and not important moments of their adventure. After that, because it coincides with the waiting time between the two episodes, it was not our intention to leave. A player who takes episode 5 and plays the 5 episodes in a row if he hasn't waited between the two episodes, it doesn't matter. But then it was interesting anyway, there was this side in addition, the episodes would take a year to come out, the game takes place over 1 year, you take time, you stop at one episode, you resume another episode a few months later, the character has aged a little and changed. Jean-Luc Cano: It also allowed us to have this feeling of travel, to spend from season to season. We start in Autumn, the snow-covered landscapes of winter, then spring and summer. We also wanted to have this diversity there and it is time that passes and its large ellipses that allow it. The big environments of each episode also correspond to the characters' feelings, the first one is their hometown, it's Seattle where they come from and it's the roads, we're going to go on the roads. The second episode is winter, we are in the cold and lost, isolated. Reconnecting with your grandparents is a bit like the little cocoon in winter that they will be looking for. In spring it's the big forests, they're protected by the big sequoias, it's like the little bubble you're making with your friends and that's what the Shawn experience will be like. And there in episode 4 the big set is the desert, we find ourselves alone on the road and we will see episode 5, but we try to put several layers of different narratives, via the sets and music, which is more folk at the beginning and then more electronic and colder. We're really trying to make it a little coherent. Music is important in Life is Strange. How do you choose the songs? Michel Koch: It's more to discuss with Raoul who is the music supervisor, after us we choose a lot of music according to what the characters listen to and that's why it seemed logical to us, and the music worked well with the scene, that Shawn listens to Gorillaz at the beginning of episode 3 in the flashback when it was summer, chill and that everything was fine. And concerning Justice, what we tried to do was to have French artists several times in the game, we had Rone in Captain Spirit, Phoenix in episode 1... Justice in episode 3. It was this desire not to take only American artists, we obviously continue to work with Jonathan Morali for all that is composition of the score and the original music of the game but we also try to have some French titles, to promote French music. And this title of Justice was interesting, it had a break. Obviously it's not just fun and entertainment to work on an illegal marijuana plantation, it can be dangerous and it's almost a form of modern slavery, they have no rights, etc... but in his state of mind Shawn has found friends, family, his lost adolescence and he has a group of friends. And with this little scene, despite all the contrast of what's going on around it, Sean is really enjoying his situation... Jean-Luc Cano: He finds his recklessness again. He recovers a little of what he has lost and it is to underline this recklessness and that despite what has happened, he remains a teenager. There are also a lot of let's plays and live streams of Life is Strange. .. And some moments of the game seem meticulously adjusted to surprise. Do you watch these player videos? Michel Koch: We're trying to watch at a lot of them. Jean-Luc Cano: Yeah, as far as we're concerned, we make games for people and thanks to the internet we can see the reactions of people who play our own game live. And see that "okay, it works". Everything that took us hours and days to create, to put the music on at the right time. We have a gratifying feeling of satisfaction that tells us "I did a good job" and above all it's cool, people feel what we wanted to convey. That's very cool. Michel Koch: Tonight we won't be able to watch the launch of episode 4 at 6pm live on the train, but... Jean-Luc Cano: Well, you know what? We're gonna watch it on the train. Michel Koch: If we can get a connection, yeah. Translation TBA External Links * Game Side Stories website References Category:Behind the Scenes (Season 2) Category:Interviews (Season 2)